restaurants

Per Se: Jackets required, huh?

maki — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:27:15 +0100

I’m in the New York area at the moment, doing some family things, required government-oriented paperwork and so on. Whenever I’m here I do like to treat myself to at least one interesting restaurant meal. So, this time around I thought of going to Per Se, the famed Thomas Keller establishment. I’ve never been to a Thomas Keller establishment.

I went to their pretty but so user-unfriendly Flash-only website (see my rant against this deplorable practice) and, after having to reload the site because it was coming up blank a few times, was dismayed to find that they require jackets (though not ties) and ‘no tennis shoes’ (I guess they mean sneakers…tennis shoes, how quaint) for lunch and dinner. I am travelling light and only have shoes of the ‘tennis’ variety, and my planned dining partner (who is a much more exacting and well-travelled gourmet than I am) is rather firmly anti-jacket, so it looks like Per Se is out for us. Bummer.

Now, I do go to some very good restaurants from time to time, in both Switzerland and France, with multiple Michelin stars and all that. In the past year or so I’ve been to several such places, including my favorite in Provence, l’Oustau de Baumaniere. I can’t remember the last time there was a jacket-required notice at any of them. The clientele was still neatly dressed, but not necessarily wearing a jacket.

So, what’s with this jacket required thing? Is it necessary anymore? Is it a U.S. thing, or perhaps an Anglo-Saxon thing? I think some London restaurants may still say this, though arguably the best 3-star restaurant in the UK, The Fat Duck (which is not in London) does not.

What do you think?

(Also, if you want to suggest a must-go-to restaurant in New York that I should check out that’s not Per Se, bring it on!)

A Frugal Eats blitz through Düsseldorf's Japantown

maki — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:25:59 +0200

I’ve long been intrigued by the famed Japantown or Japan Quarter area of Düsseldorf, Germany, but haven’t had a chance to go there. It’s about a 5 hour drive from Zürich, and there was no work-related excuse to go there - until last week that is. So, following up on my mostly Japanese frugal eats blitz through Paris, here is my 2-day all-Japanese blitz through Düsseldorf.

Düsseldorf has a Japantown because a lot of Japanese businesses have their German or European headquarters there. It is said to have their third largest Japanese expat population in Europe. (I think the top two are London and Paris, though I can’t confirm this.)

The Japantown, or Japanese quarter, is centered around Immermanstrasse. There are restaurants, travel agencies, appliance stores and the like, all catering to the expat population.

There are grocery stores too of course. The two that are on Immermanstrasse are Shochiku and Taiyo Shokuhin. Shochiku is a cramped store that has just about all the Japanese groceries you could want. It seems to be Japanese owned and operated, since the store people were yelling out at each other in Japanese, though the cashier on the second day I went there was an extremely bored looking German woman. (She stared blankly at the Japanese customers asking questions in Japanese; eventually a young Japanese man showed up and sat near the register to politely respond to the Japanese customers. It was kind of funny.) It also carries a lot of Korean foodstuffs - about 60 to 70% Japanese food, 30-40% Korean. There’s a nice looking fresh fish and meat counter, which had sashimi-grade fish, and a small fresh produce section. There’s a small selection of prepared food like sushi and salads. I saw Japanese familes/couples with small children, Japanese businessmen on their way home from work juggling a shopping basket and a briefcase, and a few German people shopping there.

Dae-Yang Asiatische Lebensmittel or Taiyo Shokuhin is just a couple of storefronts down from Shochiku. It is Korean owned and operated (they were yelling at each other in Korean). The customer mix was similar to Shochiku, though there were more Germans there, perhaps because the aisles are bit wider here than at Shochiku. The stock is about 50/50 Korean/Japanese.

There are a couple of Japanese bakeries too. Here is Bakery Taka, again on Immermanstrasse; they have things like anpan, melonpan and of course, Japanese white bread or shokupan. There’s a small eat-in area.

Maruyasu, with several locations in Düsseldorf, is a Japanese delicatessen. They sell bentos, sushi, and cooked food or osouzai. (I wasn’t that impressed by their sushi or bentos though. The sushi at Shochiku was better and cheaper, and the bentos were just ok. The onigiri were pretty mediocre to be honest. Surely green seaweed is not supposed to dye the rice a bright green.)

At Takagi, a small bookstore on Marienstrasse, just a short block south of Immermanstrasse, there were a noisy group of German tweens squealing in delight at some cute manga or Hello Kitty or whatever. (Actually there were quite a few Germans who seemed to be treating the area like a tourist stop. There was a group of about a dozen older teenagers in Taiyo/Dae-Yang getting all excited by the Japanese candies, and a group of 5 middle-aged people loudly wondering amongst themselves what this or that food was and making rather rude comments, as though they thought none of the Asians around them could understand what they were saying. A bit off-putting.)

Once more to the ramen

What cheap Japanese food does a Japanese expat crave? That’s right, ramen, as I did in Paris. From perusing some Japanese web sites, there aren’t that many ramen places in Düsseldorf, but the one we went to, Takumi at Immermanstrasse 28, was not bad at all. All the seats, including the outside tables, were filled at 12 noon on Saturday, mostly with Japanese families. (At the table next to ours, a young mother breastfed her baby under a discreet large bib before tackling her ramen. That kid is going to grow up to be a ramen lover for sure.) Takumi is a Sapporo style ramen-ya, which means the soup is a bit lighter than other styles (Kyuushuu style, Nagoya style, etc). Here is negi ramen with shio (salt/plain) soup. It was very good, though the noodles could have been better. A level better than the ramen I had in Paris I’d say.

The Guy had their egg ramen (it had some cute name, like Ajitama Ramen or something, but I may have that wrong) with miso flavored soup. It was really nice, but what blew us away were the freshly cooked, crispy, juicy and meaty chicken karaage.

So is Düsseldorf worth a detour?

As a tourist destination, the city itself lacks the character and atmosphere that you get in many other German cities. It’s a strictly business kind of town. As for the Japantown itself, similar areas in say, New York’s East Village or Los Angeles or San Francisco, or even Paris or London, are really more vibrant and interesting. On the other hand, if you live nearby (especially in Germany) and want to do a bit of Japanese grocery shopping and the like, it’s a good place to go.

Overall though, I was a little underwhelmed by Düsseldorf. One thing I noticed was that the Japanese people walking around there really stood out, in the way that Japanese expats in Paris, or London, or New York, don’t (it’s easy to tell the tourists apart from the residents in New York for example). The way the girls/women dressed for instance was very Japanese and not at all adapted to their location, if that makes any sense. I am guessing that the Japanese community in Düsseldorf may stick to itself and doesn’t really try to become part of the overall city or German culture much. I could be wrong, but that’s the impression I got.

Addresses

Takagi GmbH Books & More 高木書店: Marienstr.41; 40210 Düsseldorf; TEL: 0211 2107238; Website; Japanese books, gifts, stationery; Japanese language learning aids. Has a small selection of Clickety-Clack bento boxes. The owner lady is very friendly.

Takumi: Immermannstr.28; 40210 Duesseldorf; TEL: 0211 1793308; Mon-Fri 12:00 - 15:00 and 17:30 - 22:30, Sat-Sun 12:00 - 22:00; Sapporo-style ramen restaurant. The young staff don’t seem to speak much German.

All the other addresses mentioned are listed on the Japanese food stores in Germany page.

Addendum: We stayed at a low-service apartment-hotel via Central Apartment. A low-service apartment-hotel means that they don’t come to change your linens and make up your bed every day, but you have a small equipped kitchen, laundry in the building and other comforts of home. The apartment we got was in a residential area just a few blocks from Innermanstrasse, and was large, modern, light and impeccably clean. The kitchen even had a Zojirushi rice cooker, and JSTV was available on TV. (They seem to market quite aggressively to Japanese travelers.) The rates were very reasonable too. I liked it a lot more than a conventional hotel. The only thing against it was that the furnishings are on the Ikea level, and feel rather flimsy, but it’s basically just like staying at a friend’s apartment while they are out of town, without their clutter to deal with.

A Frugal Eats (mostly Japanese) blitz through Paris

maki — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:54:30 +0200

As I wrote a couple of days ago over on Just Bento, I recently spent a scant 3 days in Paris, on the way from Brittany back to Zürich. A normal person would spend such a short time in the gastronomical capital of [insert your favorite geographic superlative here] exploring la cuisine française. But my objective for this trip was different. My digestive system and palate were rather exhausted from 2 weeks of consuming the delicious salty cultured butter, crême fraiche, galettes (crêpes), seafood in creamy sauces, and oh yes, pastries to die for, all washed down with cider both brut (dry) and doux (less dry), that are the specialities of Brittany. I was craving the plain white rice and tea like you wouldn’t believe.

Because of a lack of planning, we had to book a rather expensive hotel in Paris, which meant our food budget was really tight. No indulging on sushi fests and kaiseki dinners, even though both are possible there. So I made it my objective to pursue cheap Parisian Japanese eats. Therefore, this article is part of Frugal Food Month. (See how I shoehorned that in?)

There seem to be three major concentrations of East Asian food in Paris. One, and the biggest, is the Chinatown area in the 13th arrondissement. Then there’s another enclave of sorts in the 15th arrondissement. But for tourists with little time, like myself, the most convenient area especially for Japanese food is the area that straddles the 1st and 2nd arrondissements near the Opéra. Every other storefront on certain streets there seem to be either a Japanese restaurant, or a Japanese-oriented store.

You do need to take a good look at those allegedly Japanese restaurants though. I have been reading a lot of Japanese expat bloggers (and there are quite a lot of them in Paris), and most complain that these so-called Japanese restaurants are not good. Not all are run by Japanese people or have Japanese cooks. That does not of course preclude an establishment from not being good, but I guess you could say that the odds may worsen.

So, the best thing to do may to just follow the crowds. By 19:00 (7pm), the popular restaurants are crammed full. Some even have lines around the block.

The center of this Japanese community in Paris is arguably Kioko, a small grocery store that’s been in business for 37 years.

Inside, you’ll find a regular Japanese grocery store. The selection is comparable to similar stores you’ll find elsewhere - nothing fancy, all the basics. They also have a baby food club (join up to order Japanese baby food), special events, a free Japanese community paper, and so on. (For bento fans, they do have a small selection of boxes upstairs.)

BookOff is a Japanese second hand book store, with branches throughout Japan as well as in several North American cities. They have two stores in Paris right by each other. This is the Opéra store, at 29-31, rue Saint-Augustin. They have a Point Carte that you can also use at Kioko (get enough stamps on your card, get free stuff.) (Book Off English web site.)

There are also Korean grocery stores that carry a lot of Japanese food. Here’s Ace Opéra. I found their prices to be a tad cheaper for things like bottled green tea compared to Kioko and the bento store Jujiya.

The food

So, what did I eat? Well, the best cheap food I found in the area (besides takeout bento) was ramen. We tried a couple of places, and weren’t disappointed at either. Here is tonkotsu ramen (pork bone soup ramen) at Sapporo Ramen.　The soup was very good, the noodles could have been better. But then, this is Paris, not Tokyo, and I was happy.

And here’s negi ramen (ramen with lots of sliced leeks) at…I think it was Higuma. Again, soup was fine, the char siu a bit fatty but good, noodles could have been better, but was still ok.

A bowl of ramen on its own is around 7 to 9 Euro; as a set menu with gyoza dumplings and such, it’s around 12 to 14 Euro. It compares favorably to set menus at French restaurants in the area.

(On the other hand, cheap sushi in Paris - just say no.)

We did venture out beyond the Opéra Japanese area. Following up on a rave review on a Japanese blog/site aimed at expats and tourists, we sought out some Korean fried chicken at Han Lim, an established Korean restaurant in the 5e, right off the Rue Mouffetard at the Place Contrascope.

I had been craving KFC ever since…oh ever since I was in New York in November, to be honest. And the version here did not disappoint. It was some of the best Korean fried chicken I’ve ever had. Crispy, light, and juicy; very more-ish. It was 14 Euro per person for a menu starting with soup (I had a delicious spicy-pork soup), the KFC with the usual delicious Korean vegetable side dishes (kimchi, namul) and rice, and tea. I seriously wanted to take home a bucketful of that chicken, but was reluctantly convinced not to since we had other dinner plans. Not to mention scheduled afternoon stopovers at Sadaharu Aoki and Berthillon. I sometimes wish that I had an extra stomach. (Besides, I don’t think they do takeout…)

I wasn’t able to stay 100% focused on Japanese/Asian food. I couldn’t resist a stopover in the Marais (my excuse: I wanted to check out the newer bento boxes at Muji) for a Middle Eastern food fest at Chez Marianne.

I am not sure what I like the best: the tarama, the falafel, the bland yet oddly addictive chopped liver, or the green olive tapenade. It’s all good though. With a big basket of bread it’s 12 Euro per person.

And speaking of falafel, there’s also l’As du Falafel, right around the corner…we passed on it this time since we were full to the brim from Chez Marianne, but next time…

Epilogue: ‘Other cuisines’ and Paris

As I write this and look over my photos, it really strikes me that there’s something seriously wrong about the last sentence in this article about Paris ‘never embracing other cuisines’. Maybe not by the kind of people who participate in Zagat surveys, but judging from the lines forming around ramen places and okonomiyaki places and falafel places and more, it seems clear that many other Parisiens are embracing good food, whatever the origin. I would argue that people who are used to good local cuisine are likely to know what good ‘other’ cuisine is as well.

In any case, now that it looks even more likely that I’ll be moving to France, I’m looking forward to exploring Paris and its inexpensive yet good ‘other’ cuisines as often as I can. 3 days was far, far too short.

Next time, I’ll be talking about a very special Japanese store in Paris, one that’s not quite frugal.

A few addresses

The grocery stores are all listed on the Japanese grocery stores in France handbook page.

Han Lim: 6 rue Blainville 75005 Paris; Tel : 01 43 54 62 74; Métro: place Monge (7); Wed - Sun 12:00～14:30 / 19:00～22:30; closed Monday, Tuesday lunch; Korean restaurant. Has all the usual things - barbeque, soups, etc. The fried chicken is a house speciality. Yum!

There are many ramen stores in the Opera area; here are just two. Look at the menus in the windows, judge the number of people inside and waiting in line, and dive in accordingly.

Higuma: 32 bis rue Sainte Anne, 75001 Paris; Tel: 01 47 03 38 59; Métro: Pyramides or Opera; Ramen (or as they spell it on the storefront, Lamen) restaurant. Japanese spoken.; Mon - Sat 11:30 - 22:00, closed Sun; Also at 163 rue St-Honoré, near the Louvre

Sapporo Ramen: 37, Rue Sainte-Anne, 75001 Paris; Tel.: 01 42 60 60 98; Métro: Pyramides or Quatre-Septembre; Mon-Sun 11:30 - 22:30; Ramen restaurant. Chinese spoken.

Chez Marianne: 2, Rue des Hospitalières-Saint-Gervais, 75004 Paris; Tel. : +(33) 1 42 72 18 86; Métro: Saint-Paul, Pont Marie (Cité des Arts); Mon-Sun 12:00 - 00:00; Middle Eastern restaurant; a few tables, plus a takeout window.; L’As du Falafel is right around the corner on Rue des Rosiers.

For a report on a definitely not cheap Japanese food store in Paris, see Workshop Issé.

A followup report on being vegan in Japan

maki — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:42:23 +0200

Asha, the reader who sent me the question that inspired me to write Japan: A Survival Guide for Vegans has sent in a great follow-up comment. I’ve posted it here so you won’t miss it. She found it a lot easier to follow her vegan regime in Tokyo than in Nagasaki, where she has been living. That makes sense I thin: any major metropolitan area these days is likely to have many people who are vegan or at least interested in a vegan way of eating, while the same might not hold true for more regional towns (Nagasaki has a long history of being a very international city, but is much smaller than Tokyo of course.)

What follows are Asha’s words.

I recently spent about four days in Tokyo and will admit that was the EASIEST time as a vegan out of the entire six and a half months I’ve been here. There are vegan restaurants EVERYWHERE. I ate with a fork for the first time since leaving America. I drank coffee at a cafe that wasn’t Starbucks. I indulged on things I haven’t had since leaving my home country and thoroughly enjoyed everything. It was incredible.

I am vegan, and though I’ve been pretty much unable to eat out at all here in Nagasaki, I don’t mind cooking my own meals. I spend a little more money than the other students from America but that’s because they are living off of incredibly unhealthy prepackaged foods. I really love experimenting with all the new and exciting vegetables and other things here. I recently found a small store called “vegetarian” [that actually sells meat…hah] and found 玄米もち [genmai mochi - brown rice mochi]！ I was so excited. I can’t wait to try it.

I really like making the Chinese savory version of 粥 kayu [rice porridge] with my own personal twist, usually using some miso, a package of natto.. various veggies.. sometimes tofu.. and of course seaweeds. It’s a great meal for any time of the day. I like to stir fry, make curries out of kabocha squash, cauliflower and red lentils [that my lovely boyo brought me from America- thank goodness for lentils!!!] and pretty much steaming or broiling [i have no oven] any vegetable I can find.

At first I ate the same boring mix of bean sprouts and carrots but thankfully have branched way, way out. Don’t forget to try all the different kinds of mushrooms and greens!! Renkon 蓮根 [lotus root], yamaimo 山芋 [mountain yam], satoimo 里芋 [taro root] and of course satsumaimo 薩摩芋 [sweet potato] are all delicious and usually quite cheap. I could live off kabocha squash- it’s THAT good.

I recently found pure organic soy milk and there’s organic tofu here that is super, super cheap. I like unsweetened ankou [azuki bean paste] on brown rice cakes and soy milk with fruit and brown rice flakes found in the organic section of one of the supermarkets I visit.

I’m rambling now, but I hope you get the gist of this entirely too long comment of me slowly adjusting to what’s available here. I think my visit to Tokyo [and enjoying things like sakura muffins and vegan tempeh sandwiches] will hold me over until August.

Thank you Maki for the awesome sites and post. I love all of your sites- especially Hungry for Words! Keep up the great work [and thanks for the email back about the bread!]

Thank you, Asha, for the very detailed comment! I thin it will be very helpful to other vegans venturing out to Japan.

Japan: A Survival Guide For Vegans

maki — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:12:27 +0100

At the moment I’m sitting in a cottage in France (recovering from a cold, but that’s another story), a land notorious for not being so vegan friendly except in the larger cities. The native cuisine is generally not vegan - even vegetable dishes often use things like dairy products or animal fats or stock in the cooking process, which can make things difficult. But if you are a vegan you probably know about this, and come prepared accordingly. (I think it’s a lot easier for lacto-ovo vegetarians in France; you could live on the delicious bread and cheese.)

If you are going to Japan, you might think that being vegan would be a lot easier. Japanese cuisine has a reputation for using lots of vegetables, seaweed and other vegan-friendly products. There is even a particular kind of cuisine in Japan called sho-jin ryouri (精進料理）, a mostly vegan temple cuisine, with a long and highly regarded tradition.

But as a reader who emailed me recently found out, being vegan in Japan is just as hard as it is in Europe.

There aren’t many vegans or vegetarians in Japan

I don’t have any numbers in front of me, but I am guessing that there are far more vegans or vegetarians in North America and the UK than there are in Japan as a percentage of the general population. According to this article in the Japan Times, most Japanese people, even those that frequent vegan/vegetarian restaurants, do so for health reasons rather than ethical or religious reasons (and most aren’t veggie 100% of the time). Generally speaking, the Japanese diet is based on fish, sometimes poultry and eggs, rice, legumes (pulses, beans) and vegetables, with meat and dairy being a later addition.

Traditional Japanese cuisine and dashi

Traditional Japanese cuisine, or washoku, is very healthy (the only thing you should watch out for really is the high salt content in some dishes). It uses lots of vegetables, seaweed, legumes and so on, with a relatively small amount of protein from fish or meat. However, one thing that makes it almost impossible to be a vegan in a traditional Japanese restaurant is the fact that dashi is used in practically everything. Here is my recipe for basic dashi; as you can see, it contains dried bonito (fish) flakes, or katsuobushi. All regular dashi recipes specify the use of katsuobushi or niboshi (dried fish). Even dashi granules, unless specified otherwise, contain bonito extract. There are dashi granules made from seaweed sources only, but these are not usually used in restaurants.

Dashi is not only used in the obvious places like soups and stews. It’s used in just about every savory dish. It’s used in dressings and sauces for vegetable dishes, as a cooking liquid for sushi rice, in dipping sauces, as a ‘hidden flavor’ (kakushi aji 隠し味) and so on. Just about the only things that are fairly sure to be dashi-free are plain rice and homemade pickles. Even things like umeboshi (pickled plums) often have some dashi added to them.

Ironically the only vegan umami flavor additive is probably pure MSG (the most common Japanese product name is Ajinomoto), which is made from soy beans. But the better a restaurant is, the less likely they are to be using straight MSG in their cooking. A better establishment would make their own dashi, and a cheaper one would most likely use dashi granules.

The use of dashi takes nothing away from the fact that traditional washoku is very healthy. For omnivores, I can’t think of many other cuisines that are better for you. But of course if you can’t eat fish in any form for whatever reason, the omnipresence of dashi can pose a problem.

Some regional cuisines like Okinawan cuisine use a dashi made of fish and pork or chicken. (Okinawan cuisine relies a lot on pork.)

So can’t I just dine on sho-jin ryouri all the time?

Sure, you could. You would need a very generous budget though. Sho-jin ryouri is Japanese haute cuisine, and a typical meal at a sho-jin ryouri restaurant can set you back 10,000-20,000 yen per person or more. (You might have luck finding less expensive places in the Kyoto/Nara area or from some temples open to the public.)

Non-traditional Japanese cuisine

So what if you were to avoid washoku altogether in Japan, and stick to ‘western’ style food? That can be a problem too. The reader who sent in the question was having a very hard time finding any vegan bread. In Japan, mainstream bread usually uses white flour, butter, and/or eggs. You can find things like baguettes and hard rolls that are probably butter-free, but you would have to ask. Whole grain breads are slowly gaining in popularity, but usually a ‘whole wheat’ bread in Japan means something with 10% or so of whole wheat flour, with the rest being white flour.

Japanese-style western cuisine or yohshoku is largely based on traditional French cooking techniques. So, the better yohshoku restaurants rely heavily on the use of properly made beef stock and demi-glace. (A pot of carefully prepared demi-glace is a badge of honor for a good yohshoku restaurant or cafe.) Besides the fact that most yohshoku dishes are meat or egg based anyway (beef stews, curries, omurice, etc.) this is not a good choice for a vegan or even a vegetarian.

So what’s a vegan to do in Japan?

For eating out, there is the Japan Vegan Restaurant Pocketguide in English - they say the new issue is due out in March. You can also try looking for macrobiotic restaurants (マクロビ　or マクロビオティック). The aforementioned page on The Japan Times site also has a small list (though it’s from 2007, so check before you go.) And treat yourself to an authentic sho-jin ryouri restaurant at least once!

But if your stay in Japan is more long term, as in many countries your best bet is to cook for yourself. You can even cook washoku for yourself, using vegan dashi. Use my vegan dashi recipe, or find konbu seaweed based dashi granules. There are all kinds of interesting vegetables in Japan for you to try, as well as different kinds of beans an legumes (dry or canned). And of course, there are the many varieties of tofu. If you can, get tofu from a tofu-ya (tofu store) that makes their own. Freshly made tofu is just amazing.

Try to eat brown rice instead of white rice. You can find all kinds of brown rice in Japan, some of which can be cooked exactly like white rice with no extra soaking time and so on. In fact, as a vegan in Japan you’ll want to base your diet around brown rice and zakkokumai rather than whole grain baked products, if only for the fact that rice is much easier to find. You can even buy things like microwaveable brown rice or brown rice porridge; even a tourist can take advantage of these handy products.

If you can’t find things like whole wheat bread at your local supermarket or konbini (convenience store), try the food halls of department stores, or look for natural food stores.

Lawson, the konbini chain, has a new ‘concept’ store chain called Natural Lawson. While they are not necessarily vegan or vegetarian, they purport to carry things like organic, low calorie and ‘natural’ products. List of stores (in Japanese); so far only in the Tokyo/Kanto area.

If you are in Japan long term, investigate joining a farming coop (農協）in your area, or just signing up for a national one that ships their products. Ask your neighbors, or look in magazines like Kurowassan (クロワッサン (Croissant)) which often has special issues on macrobiotic or vegetarian/vegan cooking, natural healing and such. There’s also a quarterly magazine called Veggy STEADY GO! that you can look for.

Incidentally, you can rest assured that any Japanese or not-Japanese recipe categorized as vegan on Just Hungry or Just Bento will really be vegan! For Japanese recipes, I always make sure to use vegan dashi.

Sunday Survey: Your most memorable 'famous person' restaurant encounter?

maki — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 09:46:10 +0100

I’m sitting here sorting through the giveaway entries, checking out the overnight Twitters, and doing laundry. Typical Sunday morning for me. @macratlove tweeted (twittered?) this, which is inspiring this question:

What’s the most memorable famous-person encounter you’ve ever had in a restaurant?

Here’s mine!

In my brief few months working the front desk at a restaurant in Manhattan, I had the chance to encounter quite a lot of famous, semi-famous, and they-think-they-are-famous customers. Most were quiet and courteous, but some were pretty rude. A select handful were downright obnoxious. (I’m thinking for instance of one particular Japanese ‘celebrity’ who thought she was Entitled to extra-special treatment. Or the famous domestic guru who showed up without a reservation on a Friday and expected to be seated right away, and got rather snippy when it wasn’t happening. Or a certain Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner who had to have his imminent arrival announced several times by his hotel concierge, with all kinds of instructions beforehand, and then ended up not showing up at all. And on and on…)

But, my most memorable Famous Person Encounter is not one of the bad ones. One summer’s night, as my colleague and I tried to deal with a packed restaurant and a growing line of waiting customers, one tall gentleman showed up with his blonde companion (his wife). He was wearing a sort of greyish jacket with a black t-shirt underneath. As my eyes traveled up the shirt to look at his bespectacled face, I realized that it was Steve Jobs.

Now, I’ve been a Mac user since the early ’90s. I was at first a reluctant convert from the PC, but my new workplace was Mac-based, and within a short time I had seen the light. I’ve stuck with Apple every since, even in the dark, dark days when it seemed as though it was either going to go out of business or become a PC clone maker of some sort. Anyway, to me Steve Jobs was a God.

Unfortunately, his [very expensive 5-star hotel]’s concierge had screwed up the time of his reservation by an hour. And, apparently he was used to sitting in front of his favorite itamae-san at the sushi counter whenever he came to New York. Panic! Panic! Fortunately, the guests who were sitting at his spot were ok with being shifted a bit to the left, so we somehow squeezed Steve, er Mr. Jobs, and his wife in, and all was well. Neither of them made any kind of fuss, and stood waiting patiently for some minutes while we figured things out. (None of the other restaurant staff were impressed in the least by him by the way; most didn’t even know, or care, that he was The Steve! To the itamae-san he was just one of his regular customers! Philistines, I tell you.)

So that’s my most memorable Famous Person Restaurant story! How about yours?

(My most recent Famous Person encounter was at JFK airport a couple of weeks ago. I saw Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the baggage claim area, leaning against the wall, waiting for his bags just like the rest of us! That dude is tall. He looked very young and spritely too.)

From the $1500 dinner to Russell Baker's Francs and Beans

maki — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:19:39 +0200

Are we heading for tougher times economically? Are we already there? I am not sure if we are indeed heading for the meltdown that some have been declaring, especially last week. In any case, the announcement of a $1500 dinner jointly produced by two of the most renowned chefs in America, Grant Achatz and Thomas Keller, coming as it did in the midst of the Lehman Brothers collapse and all, could have probably been timed better. I haven’t seen that much outrage over it, except for this on Food Musings. I must say that I don’t feel upset or anything (and if I had the money to spare, which I don’t, I’d sign up for a couple of seatings for sure), but it is a lot of money to spend on a single meal. Of course, fine restaurant dining is not really eating, it’s entertainment - and some people don’t bat an eyelash at paying such amounts for prime seats at say, the Superbowl or a concert.

Speaking of a lot of money to spend on a meal, the most famous such incident in not-that-ancient history was the $4000 (for two) feast consumed by former New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne and his friend chef Pierre Frenay, back in 1975. They actually only paid $300 for it - Claiborne had won a prize for ‘dinner for two anywhere in the world’ in a charity auction. In true bon vivant style, they had a 31-course, 5 hour blowout extravaganza at a Parisian restaurant called Chez Denis. This display of extravagance outraged many, including even the Pope. There is a nice summary of this incident here (scroll down to Critic’s Revenge).

The best thing to come out of this was a classic piece of writing by Russell Baker, called Francs and Beans. The entire text is here. I have a tattered book of his collected writings, of which this essay is by far my favorite. It should be required reading for anyone who writes about food, especially those (whether newspaper critic, food blogger, or Yelp.com reviewer) who take it far too seriously.

Now where’s my bottle of cheap gin.

(I Twittered about this briefly so my apologies for repeating myself if you follow me there.)

New poll: Should there be more restaurant cuisine authenticity verifiers?

maki — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:01:02 +0100

Here’s a new poll to chew over this Monday. The Japanese government has been ruffling some feathers in the restaurant world with their attempts to set up a program to certify the authenticity of ‘Japanese’ restaurants around the world (read about it here). Should more countries start such schemes, government-sponsored or not? Should a Spanish group be going around the world verifying if a paella is properly Spanish? Should the Germans inspect the quality of wurst? Should the Italians be inspecting those so-called Neapolitan pizzas? What about the Americans - should they go around the world inspecting bagels? (You can get some mighty unusual bagels in Japan for instance, I can tell you.)

What do you think? Have your say!

Go to the poll!

Should there be more restaurant authenticity verifiers?

maki — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:49:40 +0100

The Japanese restaurant authentifiers start moving

maki — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:06:35 +0100

Early last year, a movement to set up an authentification program for Japanese restaurant was proposed, to mixed reactions. Now it seems the people behind it are getting going: the inspectors are already in Bangkok, Shanghai and Taipei, and this year they’ll be invading, er researching London, Amsterdam, Los Angeles and Paris.

Now according to this Times UK article they will be inspecting the ‘provenance of ingredients’. Based on this argument, the Times looked at the ingredients some UK chains use and found them to be fairly authentic. Now, I do hope that this provenance thing will not be a major factor in weighing the authenticity or worth of sushi restaurants. Just because a rice is grown in California or Arkansas does not make it bad. In fact, rice from Japan that is exported is prohibitively expensive, and not economically feasible for most establishments unless they are of the Nobu level of expense-account pricing. Similarly, soy sauce can be made outside of Japan to suit Japanese tastes too (as Kikkoman does).

I really hope they just do a lot of tasting. I don’t care if Yo! Sushi uses a lot of Japanese ingredients, they are still mediocre to bad. (Yep I gave them yet another try since that previous post and they still suck. I know that I should not expect much from a conveyor-belt-sushi place in the first place but it bugs me how so many people seem to think this place is somehow ‘authentic’. I want to slap these people around with a wet flounder. Grr.) Some cities will be disappointed by the results I’m sure…I’m rather thinking of Paris (not that I’ve tried every single sushi restaurant in Paris, but the ones I’ve tried have been…eh.) If they make it around to Zürich…hmm. But above all, it’s about taste, ladies and gentlemen, taste.

Incidentally, if you are a sushi fan and traveller, I hope you know about this oldie but goodie: The Sushi World Guide - A Guide to Japanese restaurants outside Japan. This site has been around for eons in interweb terms, as the old school styling of the site shows. It’s a treasure trove of restaurant listings, and the reviews are really pretty spot on.